Love Prices: Necrofever
by dionysianDaydream
Summary: One part of the Love Prices series, which reveals the great, horrifying lengths people will take in the name of love. Beetlejuice is suddenly obsessed with Lydia, but doesn't know if he can handle it without some outside help.


Beetlejuice, with a cool drink Lydia had offered him in hand, was hanging out with her in her room as she quietly applied a few finishing touches to a homework assignment that was due tomorrow, at her desk. Until, out of the blue, the phantom friend went balls to the wall and flashed his kinkiest gems at her.

"You know, babes, it would be real awkward if we like, did it."

Upon hearing this, the gothic good girl was so surprised that she accidentally snapped her pencil in half.

"B-Beetlejuice! What are you talking about?"

"I'm just saying, you would probably wind up screaming my name over and over," he morphs his facial features to resemble hers, then mocks her by moaning, "Beej! Beej! Oh, Beej!"

The pale face of the ever-modest Lydia turned redder than an apple.

"Leave my face out of this, Beetlejuice!"

"That's what she said," he snickered in response, then turned into a turkey baster and squirted rancid gravy all over her and, worse still, her homework assignment.

With a gasp, Lydia tried to salvage any piece of her hard work from the mess, but her efforts were in vain.

"Oh, no, my term paper on Count Dracul is completely ruined!"

She glared at basterjuice.

"Was I too fast for ya, babes?"

And that is how Beetlejuice's presumptuous sexual antics first earned him a stern three-word ticket back to the Neitherworld.

Now, laying on the couch in the living room of his rundown apartment with only his neighbors; a French bodybuilding skeleton named Jacque, and Ginger the tapdancing arachnid to keep him company, Beetlejuice is feeling pretty sorry for himself. Lately he just couldn't stop thinking about Lydia: or her dark, mysterious allure - with coal black hair billowing to her thin, wispy shoulders like a cloud of smog, and her slightly parted lips that were red as a vampire's sexy dessert - to the way her eyes lit up whenever he talked about bugs, or zombies, or pulling pranks on people. It certainly took a few years too many to realize it, but Lydia truly is a one of a kind gal.

Unfortunately, she is also his best friend, and as he details the events that lead to his initial rejection to his barely tolerated houseguests, he begins to feel as though that title is more of a condemnation than a good thing.

"You have to understand, guys...jokes are all I've got. So if they don't work, what hope does a slimy, disgusting bottomfeeder like me have to snag a creepy chick like her?"

He blows his nose, shooting out a huge green loogey that melts through the floor like acid.

Ginger pats him on the back.

"Aww come on, BJ. If pervy jokes won't cut it, maybe you just gots to try somethin' else."

"So you think there's a chance?"

Jacque scratches his fleshless chin in thought.

"A snail'z chance in Paris perhaps, but she iz right, Beetlejuice. To win Lydia's heart, you will have to pull off something extraordinary."

"You mean like playing basketball with my own head?"

He jumps to his feet and dribbles his cranium.

"No, my friend! You have to swoon her," Jacques sighs, "you know Lydia better than anyone, so it should be eazy for you to figure zomething out."

Ginger giggles, "or maybe you can try dancing with her!"

Something extraordinary? Swoon her? Dance with her? Ordinarily, Beetlejuice wouldn't take advice from these two weirdos seriously, but on this particular occasion he is desperate for ideas.

The beetle-eating bozo formulates a plan before he confidently reemerges inside of Lydia's bedroom mirror with the intention of asking her out.

But unfortunately for him, he sort of catches her at a bad time:

A tantalizing sneak peek of her black cat print bra, as she is zipping up the back of her frilly Wicked Witch pajamas in front of the mirror.

"Beetlejuice!" She screeches, turning around to hide her exposed back. "What are you doing?"

"Wait, this isn't what it looks like...this time...I swear!"

"Beetlejuice!"

"Just hear me out first, Lydz!"

"Beetlejuice!"

With his name called thrice he is able to conjure fully, and appears in the middle of Lydia's bedroom.

"I can explain! There's this new dance club-"

"I had to redo my whole assignment because of you, Beetlejuice," she snaps at him, "and I still need to reprint it at school in the morning."

"I don't have a clue about you're talking about," he chuckles, while offering her a spider from up his sleeve. "Here babes, will a snack cheer you up?

It wouldn't.

Thus, with his second attempt at wooing her a complete failure, Beetlejuice does what most men would do in his worm-eaten shoes - he hits the bottle.

At a shady joint downtown called Beelzebub's, he packs away bottle after bottle of toxic radioactive waste, while a crowd of monsters clamor round to watch the day's Screamball match showing on the small screen above the counter.

"Hey, do you guys mind? I'm trying to get wasted over here." Beetlejuice burps, and momentarily turns a sickly shade of green. Staring into the frothing, vomitous depths of his not-so-soft beverage, he imagines Lydia gazing back at him whilst slurping up a centipede as if it were a soba noodle.

"It's nowhere near as filthy as that stuff she gave me earlier," he cries, as his head, arms, and legs detach from his body, "oh Lydz, I'm in pieces because of you!"

Just then, he glances up at the TV as a commercial ad starts playing.

"Are you a lovestruck sap searching for a new way to liven up your strictly platonic relationship?" The 2D animated zombie salesman says in a loud, patronizing manner," well we've got just the thing for you - Love Lotion! Just rub it on, and smooch it out! Yeah! We're actually going with that slogan!"

Beetlejuice watches the commercial intently as he pulls himself back together.

"Love lotion?"

"You heard me right! Just slap it on that unlucky someone or inanimate object you're pining for, and within seconds they'll be all over you like hair on a werewolf!" A cheap CGI animation of a werewolf with dual red hearts over its eyes pops up on the screen. "Order now!"

"Like hair on a werewolf, huh?"

Beetlejuice was instantly sold. That evening he stole three cases of the pink mystery substance from the Scare Market, but because Lydia was asleep by then, he tried to sneak the potentially incriminating items into his apartment without being seen.

But of course that damn skeleton just happens to be jogging by, the minute he steps through the front door.

"Oh, is that ze Love Lotion?" Jacque asks, touching the bottle curiously.

"What's it to ya, bones?"

"If you are zo dezperate, zhat stuff iz not az good az zee original formula, Beetlejuice zzzZZzzZZzzzZzz."

"What do you know, dirtbreath? You're a total strikeout with the ladies!"

Beetlejuice materializes a bowling ball, which he tosses at the bothersome bone bag causing him to crumble into a pile of bones and bad 80s work-out clothing.

He cackles wildly as he walks past him to his apartment.

Needless to say, Beetlejuice's mind is elsewhere, and his heart is pumping five times faster in anticipation of soft white skin, and lots and lots of lotion-lubed loving. Even his dreams that night were possessed by the vision of a spiralling staircase, leading up to the slowly descending figure of Lydia Deetz in an elegant, gothic ball gown.

"Lydia! Babes!" He beckons to her, holding his arms out expectantly.

She brushes her hand against his crusty cheek, docking her thin waist within his eager hands as she whispers sensually in his ear, "hey, Beetlejuice, I was just thinking..."

"Thinking of what?" He asks, bowing to take her hand, "My beloved chrysanthemum." A spider crawls out of his sleeve and he moves to push it back in, but Dream Lydia quickly snatches it and chomps into it like a potato chip.

"Beetlejuice..."

She boldly straps her leg around the blushing beatleman's bod.

"Don't you think a spider goes great with some...gravy?"

She kisses him on his dead lips, and with a shrill laugh he transforms into a turkey baster again, and proceeds to unleash his warm, smelly beetle juices. It rains all over the waiting Lydia, who gleefully allows herself to be tainted by the stuff with both eyes shut while running her hands through her hair, gasping and groaning; gathering mouthfuls like spare change.

"Beetlejuice!" She whines as she lowers the straps of her dress, so that the disgusting downpour decisively douses her duds and diminutive darts.

"There's plenty more where that came from, babes!"

He morphs into a firehose with a crazy grin.

"Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!"

It turns out that Lydia had been calling his name in real life, so he is teleported to the real world right before things could get truly exciting.

Still in his nightcap and pajamas, cradling the bottle of Love Lotion he fell asleep with and drooling onto the bedroom floor, Beetlejuice looks more like a frat boy who drank until he passed out during a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, than a slumbering superpowered zombie.

At least Lydia is still in her PJs too, looking downbeat as she approaches him with her hands clasped behind her back.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday," she says, offering a hand to help him up, "you were just trying to make me laugh, and it was only a mistake that you got my papers wet."

He nods as he wipes the crust from his eyes.

"It's no big deal, babes. In fact, I uhh...bought you something at the Scare Mart."

"Love lotion," she reads from the concisely marked label aloud, "that sounds weird, even by the Neitherworld's standards."

"Oh, that just means it's for people who love lotion. And I figured you do because...well, you're so," he pretends to gag, "clean, and nice smelling." Smelling of wild lavender, to be precise. Noxious to his nostrils usually, but somewhat endearing in her case.

"That's very nice of you, Beetlejuice." She giggles, extending her hand. "Why don't you give me a little squirt before I have to get ready for school?"

Beetlejuice winces at her mentioning of the word 'squirt', but restrains himself; going against every fiber of his being.

"Sure thing," he says, narrowing his eyes as putrid sweat beads form on his neck and forehead, "just promise you'll never call me nice again."

He squeezes the bottle, letting a tiny pink dollop land at the center of Lydia's palm.

She is about to smear it with her other hand but BJ butts in and, after taking a deep breath to brace himself for some secondhand hygiene, begins rubbing it in himself.

"You might as well get it all over my arm, Beetlejuice," the comfortable and totally not creeped out kid suggests, as she pulls up her sleeve.

Beetlejuice obliges, and I could bring up the creepy ghosty's pulse again to give you an idea of how tense he is, but you can probably imagine:

Her skin feels warm and supple, like a funeral pyre of babies is burning within. Smoother than a gremlin's horn. Surprisingly loose and squishy, but tight; not at all flabby. More addicting than toxic waste to the touchy-feely terror.

Once he exfoliates her whole arm he refrains, expecting her to pull away saying she has to get dressed for school.

Instead, she offers him another naked arm.

"How about this one?"

Her respiration becomes withdrawn and heavy; intimately yielding, as Beetlejuice moves his body across hers and torso to torso they touch, seperated by just two thin layers of pajama fabric.

"How's that, babes?"

Lydia directs him to her neck wordlessly, and he pulls her hair back to apply more of the thick, pink goo going from the base of her neck to the delicate bones of her jawline.

She likes it.

"Oh, Beetlejuice!"

The untouched adolescent moans as BJ fondles her ears, but squeals when he works the top button on the back of her pajamas.

"What are you...doing?"

After undoing the second and third buttons, Beetlejuice yanks her shirt down, then slaps another serving of sticky slime unto each shoulder.

"Oh...no...I'm going to be...late...stop, I have to...tell you..."

But the Ghost with the Most couldn't stop even if he wanted to, while humming The Monster Mash:

He rubs, rounds, smears, sounds, props her against the floor, mixes slippery swirls, shoves her against the wall, massages her shoulder blades, stands her on her head, lays her on the bed, caresses spindly limbs; from arms to twiggy legs, along the subtle curve of her spine, teasing her young hips (and tickly tulips I would put here because it rhymes, but this piece is meant to be a parody of actual smut as opposed to actual smut)...~

And all is going swimmingly, but by the forth Mash chorus a brand new guilt awakens within the greased up girl groper. Although, not guilt due to the fact that yes, he is indeed groping an underaged girl (for one, he's been dead for centuries, so getting it on with a centenarian would still technically qualify as pedophilism, and besides he's Beetlejuice, so he doesn't give a swarm of deadly bees anyway) but more for the reason of the mechanism he is relying on to make such a sweet setup possible.

What it all boils down to is that even to the notorious unwashed con artist, the so-called Love Lotion seemed like a cheap, dirty trick.

So, even though his hands are pleasing themselves to the tender mass of Lydia's unmasked chest, Beetlejuice loses out to that minute, nerdy shred of a conscience he has and his arms fall.

"Lydz...there's somethin' I've gotta tell ya..." Beetlejuice grunts, taking up the accursed bottle with one hand and crushing it. "It's all a sham, Lydz! This Love Lotion junk is what's turning you hotter than the Sand Worm Desert!"

She blinks vacantly; apparently not surprised by the news. The way the lotion mixed with sweat pours down her cheek makes it look like her face is melting.

"What are you talking about, Beetlejuice?"

"You don't really have the hots for me, babes," he wails, and hurls the almost empty bottle across the room. "It's all because of the lotion!"

"Yeah, I know what it actually does," she says, waving her hand dismissively, "did you really think I'm that clueless, Beetlejuice?"

"Huh? You knew all along?"

She gets up from the bed, and after fixing her pajama shirt she walks to the open clothes closet. From it, she pulls out an unlabelled plastic gallon jug that is filled near to the brim with a pale pink liquid.

"If you did a little research, Beetlejuice, you'd know that the Love Lotion is nowhere near as strong as the Love Potion!"

"Isn't that...the same stuff you gave me to drink yesterday?"

"What's the matter?"

"So you're telling me that...all this time," he starts to say, leering at the girl he had practically smothered in an otherwordly dermatological aphrodesiac, "it was the Love Potion that was driving me crazy all this time?"

She averts her eyes, tilting her mouth at an awkward angle as she blurts out the truth.

"Yes, Beetlejuice," she admits.

"But to be fair, I thought you always had a thing for me and just...didn't know how to express it. Like, you've always been hinting at it, but just when I think our relationship is going somewhere, you...crack a joke, or...break something, or create a huge mess that has everyone in the Neitherworld chasing you with pitchforks, or..."

"Oh, it's fine Lydia," he cuts her off, lying through his jagged yellow teeth.

"It'll wear off in a few days," she says, as if that settles it.

But Beetlejuice is angry, and there is no heads or tails about it.

In a flash, the mood of the moment was destroyed, and he was left standing there with both hands dripping in warm lotion; still wanting, craving, hungering, hankering, for her human flesh.

Whether he is in control of his emotions or not did not matter - all that matters to him now is that he finds a way to get what he wants, even if by force.

...she gets up to leave.

"Anyway, I have to get ready for school now, so we'll talk about this later."

Beetlejuice pins her to the bed, on her back.

"Play time is over, Beetlejuice," she tells him, but he does not listen.

She struggles to break free, but the beast unchained is stronger, as he holds the jug of Love, Actually over her head ominously.

Its cap is unloosened.

"Oh no, Lydz, play time has just begun!"

Beetlejuice tips the jug over and releases the entirety of its contents unto her.

The love-inducing cascade of liquid creates a splash when it hits Lydia's face, drenching the surrounding bedsheets and comforters, her clothes, and her hair. If only she had not opened her mouth to scream, very little of it would have made it into her mouth.

BJ discards the empty container and waits with bated breath as she recovers:

Coughing, sputtering, spitting,

Looking around with a dazed, faraway look in her eyes as the drug takes effect,

Touching his arm gently...

Beetlejuice admires his work briefly, then digs a cockroach out of his sleeve.

As a final test, he sets the writhing roach on her lip, and to his sick pleasure, she begins to suck on it automatically. There were no words spoken; just action, and it was just right for the kind of person who always looks for shortcuts, even when it comes to love.

Even when it comes at a grave cost.

"It's showtime!"


End file.
